Greystones Primary School
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The teaching of mathematics at Greystones Primary School
In addition to reading the information that is detailed below, you may like to follow these links for more details about what is taught and expectations at Greystones (just click on the words):
1. Whole school curriculum map
2. Maths progression of vocabulary
CURRICULUM STATEMENT FOR MATHS
Intent
At Greystones, we are committed to ensuring that all our pupils are successful in the three core areas of the National Curriculum: fluency, reasoning and problem solving.
We believe that everyone can succeed at maths. Our curriculum aims to foster an enthusiasm for maths in children and equip them with the skills they need to achieve as high a standard as possible. We aim to help them become confident in their conceptual understanding and use of maths so that they have the self-belief and determination to succeed when presented with a challenge. We are dedicated to enabling children to recognise how maths relates to the wider world to give the subject meaning and relevance, and so that they can use their mathematical skills and knowledge in real-life situations.
Implementation
Maths is taught as a single lesson on a daily basis, generally one hour per day, and as a cross-curricular subject as appropriate. We follow the teaching sequence outlined by the White Rose Maths Hub schemes of learning. This ensures that a coherent, consistent approach is adopted in all year groups. These provide teachers with notes and guidance on how to enhance their teaching of the subject along with key vocabulary, questions and discussion and teaching points. The White Rose Maths Hub schemes of learning reflect the content of the Foundation Stage Early Learning Goals and the National Curriculum for Maths.
The curriculum is broken down into small manageable steps in order to ensure that each lesson has a clear focus and helps children understand concepts by following a carefully planned sequence of lessons. This avoids the cognitive overload that can occur when too many concepts are covered at once and ensures that each lesson contributes to the long-term goal. Within each lesson, children have the opportunity to acquire, practice, apply and deepen their knowledge and skills as appropriate. Pupils who understand concepts quickly are challenged by being offered rich and sophisticated problems to deepen their understanding. Concepts are revisited over time so that children can reinforce them and embed them into their long- term memory. Teachers have the flexibility to spend longer on specific skills or concepts if they feel it is necessary.
When introduced to a new concept, children have the opportunity to follow the concrete – pictorial - abstract approach. Concrete objects and manipulatives help them understand what they are doing. Alongside these, children use pictorial representations that can be used to help reason and solve problems. Concrete and pictorial representations then help support children’s understanding of abstract methods.
All children are included in whole class lessons and teachers provide scaffolding and relevant support as necessary. Children who don’t make expected progress are identified and intervention programmes are put in place to support these children. This includes same day intervention that enables children to access the learning planned for the following lesson. For those children who are working outside of the year group curriculum, individual learning activities are provided to ensure their progress.
Classroom environments: Classrooms are equipped with learning walls to aid in maths lessons. The content of learning walls is flexible and contains key vocabulary, concepts and knowledge. Some of this is continually revisited and will constantly need to be on display while some will relate to current learning.
Homework: Out of school, children are encouraged to learn number bonds and times tables using the Times Table Rockstars and Numbots websites. Activities relating to a specific maths concepts are sent home weekly by class teachers to help children embed their knowledge.
Impact
Regular and ongoing formative assessment informs day-to-day teaching and learning and the necessary support to enable all pupils to make progress. Each term, teachers complete a summative assessment of which children are working below, at and above the expected level for their age. Teacher judgements are supported by the use of White Rose Maths Hub planning and assessment materials and guidance from NCTEM. Children who are not making expected progress receive appropriate intervention work.
In-school moderation of learning is conducted by colleagues within the same year group and across school, by the maths subject leaders and by the senior leadership team.
The pupils at Greystones achieve a high standard in maths. By the end of Foundation Stage, the majority of children achieve the Early Learning Goals and are ready to progress onto the National Curriculum. Results at the end of Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 are considerably higher than the national average and a significant proportion of children achieve greater depth at the end of each stage. At the end of Key Stage 2, children leave Greystones as confident, enthusiastic and resilient mathematicians who can recall and apply their mathematical knowledge quickly and accurately in a range of contexts.